Fishy business. The Social Impact of SST.pdf - Act Now!

working for a whole first week without paying me for it, so they paid me for two weeks when Igot may first pay after 3 weeks. So they’d pay me for 3 weeks inside one month only. Work wastoo hard, and pay was awful but if we complained they’d fire us. The worst part was I told theManager that he shouldn’t be calling out to us when we’re working or going home, andshouldn’t be insulting all the Sepiks, and I told him, and yet I knew that if I told the boss itwould make it hard for all of us in the section, not just me. So I told the boss and he called me asmart ass for it, and sent me home, and when I came back the next day I found that I’d beensuspended for one day not him. The management had heard his side of the story only, so thatwas it. It wasn’t a cross of mine only, it was for all the Sepiks that I got mad about this, butthey listened to him only. It was for all of us I did this, they’d all be mad at him if they heard.Then I came back and they gave me, the administration, the HR, a letter that made me sign allkinds of wrongs Id made, which I hadn’t. 5 And they didn’t want me to resign, they wanted meto shift to another section, but I rewsigned. I still have the letter somewhere. The conduct of thecatering dept was just terrible. There was a lot of prostituion or sleeping around in there, withthe female supervisor and the men. Flirting, sex, they were making it, but the admin never sawthat, they just examined me and the supervisor’s quarrel and suspended me. I would havesuspended him myself, they should have done that, but hes still working there. Making moneyfrom us sepiks too. The food for the staff of the company we made all the food. We separatedthe food for the administration though and they had the better meat and food. Workers got onecup rice, tiny little kaukau, spoon of greens and such, for all those who made money for thecompany.We shouldn’t have been feeding this amount to them. They must buy their drinks andadmin got mad at us for even serving tea to them. Just hot water. Yet their pay was lousy. Plentyof women were there trying to help their families and they always had problems. While I wasthere, 4 women fainted inside because they never had a good break inside, they were standingfor 12 hours before coming out. My opinion is, and this means for all the workers, there was nofresh air, it was recirculated inside, unhealthy, everything computerized inside there—youcouldn’t see sun or get fresh air, you’d have to come outside altogether for that. Also, when onewould make a mistake in catering, everyone would be punished, like if one spoke up orcomplained, Veali would rouse us without pay, all of us. The catering manager. He’s got abrother in Australia and he’s very westernized, all of us in catering were angry at him, morethan 50 of us in there, plenty men and women were all afraid to talk to him, he stopped us fromspeaking altogether. We accepted this and stopped. After I complained to him about insultingSepiks in tok pisin, after this problem, they promised to fire him, and bring me back, but theydidn’t, and I left. Its like gold mining, you have to go all the way out to smoke, they emptyeverything from your bilum, skin buai, they dump it out and are fired, women crying andleaving. Hide your smokes, or security would remove it—or security would e fired themselvesfor not working hard. There are 10 sections inside the company, so I don’t know about eachsection, they all are different, I’m only talking about my section, there was this problem—somebosses were PNG, some were Sepik even and they acted like Americans, like Sumanup, theydon’t talk to the people, don’t relate to the people at all. Other managers would help us, comearound and help us, but there are a couple who don’t talk to us at all, they’re like foreigners.Like Philomena Naura, she has no relationship with the workers inside the company, shes likethat, HR manager, but she doesn’t look at the human rights of the staff of the company, it’s abig problem in the company. If there’s a problem, shed hurry up and ring the GM, theAmerican, and give a full statement, her sideof the story, so when they went to talk to themanager he’d not even hear them because hed’ have heard her story, shed have called himbefore hand. So forget it. Inside the catering dept, we never bought the food from the Sepik, itwas a big problem, all the money went back to the highlands, as if we had no banana tarokaukau here. Occasionally they’d buy locally, but usually not.. Once in a while. Id always think-5 See Appendix149